Samara Morgan
'Samara Morgan '(born Samara Osorio) is the main antagonist of The Ring and The Ring 2. Her character is a remake of Sadako Yamamura from the 1998 Japanese horror film Ringu. The remake has popularised the horror trope of the "stringy-haired ghost girl" and has inspired more American remakes of Asian horror films such as The Grudge and ''One Missed Call''. She is portrayed by Daveigh Chase, who is also well-known for her roles in Lilo and Stitch, Spirited Away ''and ''Donnie Darko. '' Biography Birth In 1970, a troubled pregnant woman named Evelyn Osorio went to a Christian hospital to give birth to a baby girl, whom she named as Samara. The biological father of Samara remains unknown but he is often implied to be otherworldly and demonic in nature. After giving birth to Samara, Evelyn later heard voices in her head which told her that the only way to release evil spirits from Samara was by drowning her. Whether the voices came from her instincts or from Samara herself remains a mystery. She eventually followed the voices and decided to drown Samara in a fountain outside the hospital but a group of nuns caught her in the act and took the baby away from her. Samara was put up for adoption whilst Evelyn was locked in a mental institution, living in constant paranoia of her daughter's powers and the inhuman being that impregnated her. Adoption Eventually, Samara was adopted by Anna and Richard Morgan, who were avid horse breeders in Moesko Island. A book dedicated to Samara, which was written by Evelyn, was stored in the basement of the Morgan ranch despite Samara having little memory of her own biological mother. Anna loved Samara dearly as if she were own child due to her several miscarriages between 1963 to 1969 and Samara loved her back in return. As Samara grew up, she developed strange supernatural powers known as nensha, which enabled her to unintentionally burn gruesome images into her parents' minds. Having no knowledge to be able to control her powers, her powers grew out of control unintentionally over the years, which eventually caused her to be alienated by the community. Samara became the perfect scapegoat for the misfortunes that occurred on the island such as crop failures and everyone began to suspect that there was something evil that was not of this world residing within the little girl. Meanwhile, Samara's relationship with her adoptive mother began to sour as Anna was slowly driven insane by the gruesome images that were constantly burnt into her head when Samara was around. As a result, Samara often spent her time alone on the swings outside the Morgan ranch. Eola Psychiatric Hospital Anna consulted Dr. Grasnik, the local doctor, about the gruesome images in her head but being unable to help her, Dr. Gransnik referred both Anna and Samara to Eola Psychiatric Hospital. Under 24/7 surveillance, Anna was treated for depression and suicidal thoughts whilst Samara's powers were observed by a psychiatrist named Dr. Scott. During her stay in Eola Psychiatric Hospital, Samara is unable to sleep and displays her nensha by burning images onto transparent film which Dr. Scott uses as evidence for her powers. Dr. Scott asks Samara on how she was able to perform her powers but she gives cryptic answers such as "I see them... and then... they just... are." He also presumes that Samara doesn't truly want to hurt anyone with her powers but Samara sinisterly confesses to him that her powers are too strong and that she won't stop hurting others, indicating that her sanity is slowly slipping away. The Horse Epidemic To prevent Samara from tormenting people with her powers, Richard decided to isolate her on the top floor of the horse barn. Left alone with only a TV set to entertain her, Samara had difficulty sleeping due to the noises that the horses made during the night. Believing that her adoptive parents cared about the horses more than her, Samara burnt gruesome images into the minds of the prized horses which drove them insane, causing a mass suicide that claimed 27 of the horses who all leapt from a nearby cliff to their deaths. The Morgans later became the center of unwanted attention from the media, who described the mass suicide of the horses as an "epidemic". The horse barn was later quarantined but no one was aware of Samara's powers at the time. Depressed over the loss of her horses, Anna was sent back to Eola Psychiatric Hospital. Trapped in the Well Anna was eventually released from the hospital five days later and as a way to relieve themselves from the recent tragedies, the family decided to travel to Shelter Mountain Inn for a vacation. Whilst Samara stood besides a well in Shelter Mountain Inn, Anna finally snapped and suffocated her with a black, garbage bag before throwing her down into the well in order to stop Samara from mentally tormenting her and the horses for good. Anna later became horrified by her actions and proceeded to commit suicide by jumping off a nearby cliff out of remorse. Meanwhile, Samara tried to crawl out of the well but broke her fingernails in the process as a stone lid slowly covered the top of the well, sealing her fate. She eventually died due to hypothermia and starvation after spending 7 days in the well. After Samara died, the horses in the Morgan ranch returned to normal but Richard decided to stop breeding them. Resurrection Many years after Samara was thrown into the well, a set of rental cabins were built in Shelter Moutain Inn. Cabin 12 in particular was built directly above the well, where it contained a TV set and a blank videotape inside. Meanwhile, Samara returned to the living world as a vengeful ghost concealing her hideously waterlogged face with her long, black hair. Seizing the opportunity to unleash her murderous agenda upon humanity, Samara mentally transferred gruesome thoughts and the twisted memories of her own isolated life onto the blank videotape. The blank videotape was also cursed as a result of the mental transfer and it is heavily implied that her vengeful spirit resided within the contents of the videotape itself. Anyone who viewed the now cursed videotape would receive a phonecall from Samara notifying them that they will die 7 days after their initial viewing of the tape. If the viewer fails to copy and send the cursed videotape to a person who has never seen it under the 7 day deadline, they will die of shock or fear via a hear attack when they see Samara crawling out of the screen of a nearby TV set and revealing her waterlogged face to them. It is unclear what would happen if the viewer was nowhere near a TV set on the final day of the deadline but is likely that Samara will find alternative means to kill them such as emerging from a nearby reflective surface. One weekend, a group of teenagers, including a high school student named Katie Embry and her boyfriend Josh and two other friends, stayed in Cabin 12 where they planned a record a football match. Due to the poor reception in Shelter Mountain Inn, one of the teenagers decided to use the blank videotape to record the football match. To their horror, the cursed videotape played instead on the TV screen and they later received a phonecall, which they initially believed was merely a prank call. Nevertheless, they left Cabin 12 immediately without paying for their brief stay. All of the teenagers later experienced supernatural symptoms of the curse such as having their faces distorted whenever they took photos of themselves, mindlessly scribbling an image of Samara onto paper, having constant nightmares related to the tape etc. The effect of the curse also offered them the ability to be able to predict their own their deaths as seen when Katie tells her younger cousin Aidan Keller that she will die soon. Aidan appears to be affected by it and constantly draws pictures of Katie being buried underground, foreshadowing her fate. Everyone Will Suffer After 7 days, Katie tried to pretend that nothing ever happened by inviting her best friend Becca Kotler to a sleepover at her house. To overcome the boredom during the sleepover, Becca began to discuss about an urban legend surrounding the same cursed videotape. Katie is horrified by her knowledge of the tape and confesses to her that she had seen it with her boyfriend and her other friends a week ago. Becca disbelieves her but suddenly, the phone downstairs rings, which startles them as they believe it is Samara. However, it turns out to be Katie's mother and after finishing her conversation with her mother over the phone, Katie notices the TV in the living room turn on by itself on static. She initially believes that Becca is simply pranking her but the TV turns on by itself twice and after plugging the switch from the powerpoint, Katie sees an unseen force fleeting by through the reflection of the TV screen. Katie also sees the fridge door in the kitchen open by itself but she closes it immediately and calls Becca for help. However, Becca doesn't respond and Katie runs upstairs, only to see water leaking out of her bedroom door, indicating that Samara had already crawled out of the TV in her bedroom and was waiting for Katie to meet her doom. Katie opens the door and sees the image of the well Samara was thrown into on her TV screen. As she screams, Samara kills her (which is shot from Samara's point of view) by frightening her to death via a heart attack. Her last moments of fear and dread when she witnessed Samara was left permanent on her face, resulting her face to be distorted and bloated and her mouth gruesomely twisted and gaped open with pure horror. Later in the night, her mother returned home only to find the distorted corpse of her own daughter inside the corner of a closet. Meanwhile, Becca is sent to a mental hospital after witnessing the entire event, where she experiences constant fear and paranoia over television screens. She also appears to possess the ability to predict the deaths of those who had watched the cursed videotape, presumably due to her exposure to Samara when she witnessed Samara crawling out of the TV and killing Katie. On the exact same time and night of Katie's death, her boyfriend Josh mysteriously committed suicide by jumping off his apartment building and her two other friends died in a car crash. Despite the mystery of their deaths, it is heavily implied that Samara in some way influenced the events to occur in the first place or alternatively drove insane with her powers leading them to be killed in horrific accidents in a similar fashion to the mass suicide of the Morgan horses. The Cycle of Death Katie's death brought the attention of a troubled journalist named Rachel Keller, whose son Aidan eerily predicted Katie's death. Aidan was also the only one who knew how truly evil Samara was and how she wasn't supposed to help her, especially after Rachel and her ex-boyfriend Noah tried to appease Samara's spirit in the well and as a result, gave her a proper burial. As a result, Noah, who didn't copy the videotape and send it to another person, was killed by Samara after she crawled out of his TV screen and killed him by frightening him to death. Rachel finally realised why she was spared as she had sent the videotape to Noah previously and does the same thing for Aidan, who has also seen the videotape as well. She also receives flashbacks from the time when she visited Richard Morgan telling her how "his wife wasn't supposed to have a child" moments before killing himself after realising that Samara has returned to the world for no good, which causes her to change the way she views Samara. Defeat Meanwhile, a subculture that was dedicated to the cursed videotape rises in popularity as more people watch the cursed videotape but many of them send it to another person before 7 days to avoid being killed. However, a teenager named Jake failed to send the videotape to his girlfriend who has never seen it before and was killed that night. Rachel and her son Aidan move to the same town where Jake was killed and is deeply horrified that Samara is still alive and well. Samara, who is attracted to Rachel's motherly personality, decides to make Rachel her new mother by possessing Aidan but often fails in trying to emulating him. Under Samara's possession, Aidan kills several people including a man named Max who tried to help Rachel from her past experiences and a doctor named Dr. Temple who is unaware that Aidan is possessed. However, Rachel already knew that Aidan was possessed and successfully drowns him to release Samara. Moments later, the vengeful Samara tries to return to Rachel by emerging out of her TV screen and Rachel decides to sacrifice herself by allowing herself to be dragged into the well by Samara so that Aidan won't be endangered by Samara ever again. Looking up from the well, Rachel realises that the well has always been open, which had freely allowed Samara to enter and exit into the world to kill people. Suddenly, Rachel notices Samara emerging from the water. Rachel manages to crawl out of the well in time and as Samara calls out "MOMMY!" in a deep demonic voice, Rachel replies "I'M NOT YOUR FUCKING MOMMY!" and proceeds to close the well with a stone lid, trapping Samara inside the well, where she belongs. Though still alive, she is tormented with misery and as a result, suffers more than ever. Resurgence However, it is revealed in ''Rings, a sequel set 13 years later after the events of the original film, that Samara is still active and albeit more powerful than ever. How she become more powerful implied due to the popularity of her cursed videotape: Because a lot of people watch the video but many of them send it to another person before 7 days to avoid being killed, it's much more likely that the contain of her cursed videotape spread across electronic media unchecked, which explained how she able to have upgraded the technology of her cursed video and is able to spread it to many, if not millions, of people via e-mails, the Internet, texts etc. In the trailer, a character attempts to prevent Samara from emerging out of a TV screen by hurling and smashing the TV on the ground but Samara is able to come out regardless. It is revealed that she can appear in many screens at once, which can fatally affect everyone nearby it, even if they haven't watched the video, as seen when she is able to appear in many screens in an airplane, nearly causing it to crash. The Cursed Videotape The cursed videotape contains surreal, otherworldly and somewhat graphic imagery that is based on both Samara's life and her twisted imaginations. In order, the disturbing scenes of the videotape include: 1) A "ring" light is shown around the lid that is covering the well and is shown from Samara's point of view. 2) Blood is shown flowing in water. This hints to the horses that were forced by Samara to commit suicide and foreshadows the ferry incident where Rachel indirectly causes a horse to kill itself. 3) A chair that Samara sat on whilst being isolated in the barn is shown in an empty room. 4) Hair is shown being combed moments before it is revealed to be Anna Morgan, who is combing her hair in front of the mirror. Samara telekinetically switches the mirror to the other side of the wall for a brief moment as a childly prank. Anna looks at her and smiles. If you turn up the volume, you can hear Samara's lullaby in the background. 5) Richard Morgan is seen looking down from the window of the upper level of the Morgan residence. It is from Samara's point of view as she occassionally plays on the swings below. 6) A fly flies in the sky near the cliff at Shelter Mountain Inn. Once the tape is watched more and more, a person can physically grab the fly out of the screen. 7) Intestines are shown being pulled out from a humanoid mouth at a fast rate. This hints to the cords that various characters who are cursed by the videotape vomit out. 8) A black plastic bag, which was used to suffocate Samara, was briefly seen being thrashed. 9) A tree is then shown on fire, which is revealed to be the Japanese maple tree seen at Shelter Mountain opposite the well's location. Samara was admiring the tree before being pushed down the well by Anna. The fire element is a reference to the tree's red leaves lighting up when in the presence of the sun. 10) A finger is impaled right through a needle and we briefly see the nail come off. This mimicks Samara's nails painfully falling off when she tried to crawl out of the well. 11) Maggots are seen swarming before it switches to humans swarming around in a liquid substance. This hints Samara's misanthropic view towards humanity. 12) A centipede crawls out from under the table which has a glass of water on top of it. This could probably show Samara's twisted view towards Dr. Scott, her psychiatrist. 13) A three-legeed lamb or goat is shown limping into the barn in order to hide. This symbolises the "freak show elements" that Samara had which caused her to be isolated and marginalised from society. 14) A horse's eye stares in horror, presumably in response to Samara's malevolent presence which drove the other horses to commit suicide. 15) Seven severed fingers are shown twitching in a box. This symbolises the 7 days that the viewers have after viewing the tape or the restless and neverending nature of the curse and Samara's spirit. 16) The burning maple tree is shown once again and it glitches for a few brief moments. 17) Anna is shown tying her hair after finishing combing and stares at the camera (in reality she is looking at Samara). 18) Richard disappears from the window at the upper level of the Morgan residence and the same chair from earlier is seen spinning upside down in the air. A ladder, which was used as the only access to the upper level of the horse barn where Samara was isolated, is seen leaning against the wall. 19) Blurry images of the bodies of the horses that were driven to commit suicide by Samara are seen being washed up on the shores. 20) A footage of Anna Morgan committing suicide by jumping off the cliff at Shelter Mountain Inn is shown. 21) The well's lid is shown being closed and a ladder falls down after that. The videotape ends with the well being surrounded by the trees of a nearby forest. If the videotape is watched more and more, the viewer can see Samara's hair and arm briefly emerging from the well. Body Count * Doctor Scott - The doctor who interviews Samara in the tape Rachel finds at the Morgan house. He was killed shortly afterwards by Samara. *27 Morgan ranch horses- Driven insane by Samara which drove them to kill themselves. * Katie Embry - One of the group of teenagers who accidentally used the cursed videotape in an attempt to record a football match. She is also the only one in the group who is seen to be directly killed by Samara, leading to the instiutionalisation of her traumatised friend Becca. *Josh Turnadot - Katie's boyfriend who was also part of the group. who jumped off a building to presumably escape from Samara or was driven insane by her. *Scott Conroy - Katie's friend and a member of the group who is killed in a mysterious car crash. Samara most likely appeared on a reflective surface as they were nowhere near a TV and frightened and distracted them, which caused him to lose control of his car and crash. *Stacey Nyugen - See above. *Shelter Mountain Innkeeper - Noah finds him dead in a canoe at Shelter Mountain's lake. This is only included in the deleted scenes of the first film's DVD. *Ferry Horse - The horse is frightened by Rachel, who is "infected" by Samara's presence, causing it to go in a frenzy moments before jumping off the ferry. Blood is seen flowing out from the bottom of the ferry, hinting that the horse was sucked underneath and mutilated and killed by the propellers. *Noah Clay - Rachel's ex-boyfriend. He was unaware he had to copy the tape, and is killed by Samara directly. *Numerous viewers in Rings. *Jake - Killed by Samara directly. *Doctor Emma Temple - Whilst possessing Aidan, Samara forced Temple to inject a lethal injection into her neck, making her look like she killed herself. *Max Rourke - He tries to photograph Samara possessing Aidan as proof but Samara (in Aidan's body) notices this and kills him. His distorted corpse is found slumped against the steering wheel of his pickup truck. 'Total: 38 (excluding numerous viewers in ''Rings) ''' Trivia *It is highly likely that Samara inherited her supernatural abilities from her biological father as she managed to manipulate and control the movement of water despite the fact that she was aquaphobic (fear of water). *Samara's name means "protected by God" in Hebrew, hinting that her biological father is indeed from a supernatural realm. One of her victims' name was Noah and Noah is of Hebrew origin as well and Noah is a well-known character in the Bible who suffered in a great flood (a nod to the major theme of water in the films) and was one of the victims forced to endure the wrath of God, in contrast to Samara's name. *Although both Samara and her Japanese counterpart have similar tragic backstories, Samara is far less sympathetic than Sadako as after her tragedy, she continued to kill and never wanted to fix her mistakes unlike Sadako, who attempted to revert to her kind-hearted persona. Even when one of the protagonists try to help Samara (e.g. when Rachel sacrificed her safety to be her mother), Samara will often refuse it and continue to be the deranged psychopath that she unfortunately became. *Another theory about how Samara killed her victims is that she mentally projects all the horror from her life and the cursed videotape into the victim's mind in a short amount of time, which literally blows their mind to the point that their faces and eventually bodies become bloated and distorted. This is why a series of images from the cursed tape is shown briefly, followed by static, before each victim dies in the films. *In a deleted Scene, local fishermen tell Rachel an alternate version of Samara's beginning. They claim that Samara is Richard and Anna's biological child, and that a doctor from overseas helped them get pregnant. It is assumed that made deals with demonic forces as the fishermen tell Rachel that Richard and Anna often "messed with nature" before they finally gave birth to Samara. 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